


Dollhouse- Stage Fright

by shadowkat67



Series: Dollhouse Episode Reviews [3]
Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Review, Episode: s01e03 Stage Fright, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-01
Updated: 2009-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22406110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkat67/pseuds/shadowkat67
Series: Dollhouse Episode Reviews [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612507





	Dollhouse- Stage Fright

I am still on the fence regarding _Dollhouse_ \- for these reasons:

It requires a lot from its audience. Perhaps too much.

It's a convoluted set-up, with a central character who literally has no identity outside of the memory implants she gets each week. Add to that - some genuinely squicky and disturbing themes. La Femme Nikita was squicky too - but at least Nikita got to keep her identity, she was an agent to stop terrorism, and they didn't memory wipe her then pimp her to the highest bidder, she had agency, she had a choice - limited true, but a choice, and her actions each week stayed with her. Same deal with Alias - at least Sydney had "agency". Here - we get the feeling that the Doll's gave up their "agency" or "identity" - have it wiped clean, no clue why, to be pimped out to the highest bidder, in order to become the highest bidder's perverted fantasy??? They need to tell us why these people chose to do this, assuming of course they chose it, and fast. The audience needs a character to identify with - Echo isn't someone most audience members want to - she is too much of a cypher. Ballard? Or the Handler? Maybe - but their both male, and not the lead.

While I like Dollhouse - it appeals to my analytical side, emotionally I have troubles with it and I can't say that I'm all that invested in its success at the moment. I do not see myself buying the DVD nor do I see myself rewatching each episode. Plus it gives me nightmares, which makes me wonder why I'm bothering with it. Regarding it's longevity - at this point? I'll be surprised if it makes it past 13 episodes. I'm not really sure.

Dollhouse is an incredibly ambitious show. Whedon appears to want to do a lot of experimental things in this tv show - some of which, I'm not sure he can do and am not at all certain he can pull off. I'm watching for much the same reason I loved watching the last four seasons of Buffy - it's like watching a hire wire trapeze act without a net. The writers are taking risks, trying something new and different, experimenting - curious to see if they can pull it off. I have serious doubts at this point that they can - but...we're only three episodes in, so who knows?

Stage Fright, Episode 1.3 of Dollhouse- did provide Echo with a little bit more agency. Granted Eliza suffers from what I like to refer to as George Clooney syndrom - she has a specific set of mannerisms that do not change regardless of the role she plays - and the mannerisms are unfortunately too noticeable, much like Cary Grant and John Wayne's voices. You almost want to make fun of them. With some directors they are understated, with others more obvious. Last week - they were more understated, so I think DeKnight may have tuned them down a bit. That's why people keep thinking "Faith" whenever they watch an episode - the vocal inflection and mannerisms are the same.

I liked the episode a smidgen better than last weeks and was pleasantly surprised, because it has been done before. The B plotline or episode plotlines are a bit on the cliche side of the fence. We've seen these tales before, and unfortunately more than once. That may or may not be intentional - hard to tell. My guess is it plays to Whedon's general theme of actors being forced to do stupid things over and over again, and the relationship of fans and celebrities.

The second part - fans/celebrities is actually an interesting theme, which I've been thinking about lately. I was discussing this with a friend a while ago, we were discussing the moral ickiness of reading real person fanfic - specifically around celebrities. To what degree, I wonder, do we have the right to draw, take pictures, hound these people for autographs, and write fanfic about them? To what degree is posting pictures of them online a violation of their privacy? We as fans, also are known to put them into roles, and we often put them pedestals, treating them like gods. Amazed when they screw up and get angry. Christian Bale, Russell Crow, Isiah Washington, Alec Baldwin, etc have all had their names kicked around in the press and have had incidents that happened in the work place, not on screen, publicized. Back under the studio system - they were protected more, much like children, but they also had no lives that were not set up by the publicity machine.

Think about it, how often have you blown up, said something stupid, got angry, etc at work, at home, or with a friend? Would you want that aired in public? Posted everywhere? Out of context? I'm really glad I'm not a celebrity. I would not hold up well under the glare of the public eye. I do not envy celebrities.

Rhianna in the third episode of Dollhouse is a bit of Britney Spears clone. She wears skimpy outfits, dances in a cage, and used to work for the Mouse or was created by the Mouse, until she became a pop superstar. Now she has a bit of a death wish - she feels like she's the fans puppet, that she's in a cage for them to oogle and fawn over. They want her death - because that would fuel their obsession - if she lives too long, she fades, she becomes less interesting.

Echo - a doll, is planted as a backup singer and body guard. Her memory/personality implants make her want to save and protect Rhianna, not make her act as a professional body-guard. Topher - the memory implant/personality writer/creator - theorizes this will make her a better body guard, because she wants to save Rhianna and isn't just doing it as a job. What Topher and the others don't realize is Echo has become aware enough in her tabula rasa state - that she recognizes Serena as a friend. Even greets her, then quickly covers, before anyone can tell.

Serena as opposed to Boyd is setup as backup. Serena is given the personality of Audra. An obsessed fan. To balance, apparently, the obsessed male fan stalking Rhianna. Both are versions of the same beast. Audrey is simply annoying, and fawning, shy, and clearly socially awkward. Almost pathetic. While the guy, a nebbish geeky sort, is creepily obsessive, yet slight, pale, and doesn't get out of his room much. Rhianna seems to prefer the male's reaction - because she sees it as a way out. He gives her flowers, and he kills her.

Echo - ironically, tells Rhianna she has a choice. She does not have to stay in that life.

The twist in this episode, is when the creepy guy takes Audra hostage and Echo, instead of letting Audra die or letting the handlers rescue her - she would have no way of knowing they would, chooses to take decisive action to save Audra. Rianna clearly doesn't care about Audra. So Echo knocks out Rianna, takes her hostage, and puts her in danger - as a bargaining chip for Audra's life. Rianna's life isn't the one Echo is working hard to save, it's Audra's and the handler's fear she's jumped the mission. It's Olivia Williams character, the head honcho of the Dollhouse, who thinks otherwise and applauds the outside of the box thinking. While her counterpart, Reed Diamond (I have no idea what his character's name is and yes this is another big problem I have with the show, because you should not have to look it up - it is the writer's job to tell us) wants to place her in an attic - out of service. Like a thing. He sees her as nothing but a thing.

At the end of the Echo storyline in the episode - Echo and Serena again smile and acknowledge each other, but Echo indicates to Serena not to show too much, that they are being watched. It's the first indication we have that both dolls are not completely blank slates.

The other story-arc - with Agent Ballard, reveals that the Russian Mobster, Victor Lubvoc is actually a doll himself. He states ironically to Ballard - that he'd love to be a doll, wipe my brain, not remember anything I've done, a clean slate, wake up, Doris Day. I can't help but wonder if that's literally what he thought when he joined up.

Ballard sees the dolls as little more than human slaves, with no agency, part of an underground human trafficking scam - that would explain a lot of missing persons cases.  
The Dollhouse is proposed as little more than an urban legend to Ballard. Urban legends, by the way, are in most cases based on a kernal of truth. It really happened, someone embellished the facts, exaggerated them, and as the story was orally passed from mouth to mouth, head to head, it grew. I minored in urban legends.

If you look below the surface, there's a lot of interesting themes jockeying about here. One - is what are you in your blank state? I don't see the dolls as children so much as tabula rasa, without thought. This is a rather John Lockian view - that we are not born with innate ideas and personalities, we obtain them over time, they are learned or inserted. They are innate. In Dollhouse - personality is taken from someone else's experiences.

If you watched Sarah Connor first - this theme gets explored twice. In Sarah Connor, she's afraid that a machine is taking her consciousness, her memories and giving them to machines. A sort of Jack Finney, _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ , fear. Although I see Demolished Man by Bester, where the old personality is erased and a new one inserted in its place

The other themes - are the Marxist view of the proletariat lost within the capitalistic corporate machine. (Oddly enough the civilizations that attempted communism, ended up creating the government as the corporate structure, and the people got lost within that. So I'm wondering if it is possible not to have that happen. I may be wrong.) The dolls are people as product. 

And the relationship between the writer and the actor and the creation. The Shakespearean concept that we are but players on God's stage, manipulated by his strings, and do we even have our own agency. 

Dollhouse is a fascinating series, but I don't think it can satisfy the viewers/demo who just wants a quick entertaining escape. Buffy functioned on that level as well as the higher one in its first three seasons, by the 4th season it began to slowly lose the escapist audience, who found the show not the fun little monster of the week series they liked. Dollhouse unlike Buffy, requires a bit more from its audience at the start. It's not a show, like Buffy, that you can watch with the kiddies - it's an adult series, requiring an adult perspective.


End file.
